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Maybe that’s actually the most realistic place to be for the foreseeable future.

Never a normal again.

I remember with enduring and sustaining gratitude and delight, that it’s two years since I heard that Would be able to take up this wonderful and impossible post.

The ways of working over past years ( travelling, face-to-face encounter) have been put beyond use, though these may remain in our residual repertoire for now.

But, for now:….

Some roles are unavoidably “furloughed”, such as interaction with those in training institutions, though I have reason to believe that, like the blossoming of Network meetings online through the perseverance of our programme co-ordinator, this might actually become more possible due to current circumstances. Likewise, or so it might first appear, the obligation to lay foundations for environmental chaplaincy beyond the time of the current iteration ( though read on…)

For the time being, following discernment, rather than anything in my terms of service/job description, I am a full-time digitally visiting preacher, putting into video ‘sermons’ a level or energy comparable to that involved in planing and carrying out a visit to a local congregation.

Also emerging more strongly at this point, is to continue to pioneer a green approach to the waypoints of the Christian calendar. Like Ascension.

The project of ‘Creation Time/Season of Creation’ ( and coming up, ‘Climate Sunday’) is an additive, rather than transformative step in this direction, though these remain as vulnerable as ‘green issues’ generally are to being sidelined as icing on the cake. How many congregations will want to know about ‘Climate Sunday’ if churches are still subject to lockdown measures by September?

To break into the most memorable and constitutive festivals which, (for good or ill,) help people to grasp and define for themselves what the church is when the church is being the church, has been one of the most difficult nuts to crack. Even making plain the missional implications of Christmas as the story of a refugee family can be rather uphill.

We’re happy to have a special eco-service now and then, and might even enrich it by inviting neighbours, though Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity are still, for most of British Christians, ‘too holy to be green’. And, for pastoral reasons, we can often add Mothering Sunday and Harvest to this list. EcCongregation Scotland is an agency of Mission and evangelism to the churches.

Lockdown circumstances are pushing me into more worthwhile reflection, precisely on things to which I would not likely be invited to be part of by local churches. For instance, that the extremely odd and often unhelpfully picturesque festival of Ascension is indeed Ascension into Creation, rather than out of reality. In this I am building on some liturgical models from the Iona Community.

In the ‘old days’ , someone in my position would head off on a sabbatical and come up with a manuscript for a book, “Greening the Christian Year” – or some other such predictable title….. which would be published, reviewed, swiftly remaindered, then pulped.

Should such a thing happen, at least digital publishing saves the environmental impact of those final stage.

But where the green dimension of completely mainstream and identity-defining customs and celebrations is brought out , that’s where the answer lies to continuing ‘environmental chaplaincy’, and precisely because everyday churches and leaders will make it happen.

The question of how to reach this stage still requires further reflection and inspiration.

But please do not underestimate this potential for lasting transformation of church life by targeting what people think of as the under-rated and empowering foundations of that life. Right now, under very real pressure from the Pandemic (which we really do have to see as the ‘foothills’ of the greater layers of crisis,) the old solutions of trusting money and giving greatest power to those who administer it might look to be reasserting themselves.

One wonders how deep the awareness in our institutions of the magnitude of environmental emergency ever penetrated at all?

What is needed is dialogue and partnership, rather than a power game. Or a blame game. As noted, the pressures are horizon-blockingly real. We need to pray for and constructively support those who are trying to respond to them. No one would want these things on their plate!

As part of the preparation for the online retreat I was asked to lead during Laudato Si week, I looked in greater detail, than ever I had before, at the ‘commandments’ of Jesus. I combed the four Gospels on the lookout for direct commands, instructions and interventions. The occasion was a reflection on John 14, where, rather than insisting disciples ‘obey’ commandments, Jesus asks that they ‘keep’ (treasure) the commandments that they ‘have’. In the version of the Bible I was using, ‘obey’ occurs in John’s Gospel when it is used not by Jesus, but by his complacent opponents:

“We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.” (John 9:31)

Our hope as Christians, of course, is precisely that God does listen to sinners, and loves and guides those who realise they have acted against God’s will. And of the friends of Jesus, more is expected than the mere obedience of slaves. (cf also Luke 17:10)

And that instructional teaching from Jesus is the starting point for the concrete and grounded decisions, of varying scale and moment, which lie before us together and alone.

Still, you can’t legislate on the basis of one translated word. And every theological assertion will have holes. This is something we have to live with, and not be disabled by. The most destructive and unhelpful theology is one which intimidates by trying to sew everything up, or to annihilate opponents. That also throws away the great advantage of theological reflection: that, with honesty, we responsibly make leaps of reasoning before the pathway to our landing-point may fully have emerged. The colours of the rainbow coexist, even when we insist we only see white light. How to find our place and purpose in the created World, without continuing our ancestral capitulation to the injustice and idolatry of the systems of the human “world”?

(For the record: a huge proportion of Jesus’ ‘commands’ are for the equipping/formation/shaping of disciples. Healings are accomplished by direct intervention against natural forces, but generally only with the consent or at the request of humans who look to be healed. Rather more of Jesus; teaching ( especially in Luke) is of the order of “this is the situation: you decide, though take the consequences”. Jesus commandingly evicts, rather than destroys, natural forces/demons who are in the wrong place. And I wondered if his robust conversation with the wind and the waves, to the benefit of terrified disciples, might be helpful in giving us confidence in managerial interventions to ‘tend and keep’ the environment, whilst mitigated by the comforting nuance of “peace, be still” ( Mark 4:39)).

Reflecting on differences of church tradition also throws up the sense in which imperatives emerge through discernment. Reformed churches are reticent about acknowledging as ‘sacrament’ anything not directly ‘ordered’ by Jesus in scripture, though others are more than content to allow discernment to command, albeit with very heavy safeguards.

Circumstance, like Jesus, both prunes us and enables. What is the fruit we look to bear?

Nonetheless, the question I’m left with is this: what does Christ command us today, equipping us as friends, and how, having discerned this, will we allow our lives to be transformed?

As the ‘men in white’ of Ascension bluntly advised the Galileans on the hill [paraphrase]

Westray Parish Church on the island of Westray in the Orkney Isles has become the 5th congregation to gain an Eco-Congregation Scotland Gold Award.

Westray church and two of the wind turbines.

Westray Parish Church had applied for a silver award. However when the assessors visited them they realised that the work being done by the congregation far exceeded that standard and decided that they should be given their Gold Award. The congregation have been especially commended by the assessors for the way the church has been leading the community through involvement in island wide energy projects such as installing a community owned wind turbine and a project with Lottery and Scottish Government grant funding which worked to identify the 9 houses on Westray most severely affected by fuel poverty and energy inefficency. The project took them out of fuel poverty by installing ground source heat pumps, double glazing, extra insulation and draft proofing in each home. The activity of Fair Trade Group, under the Chairmanship of the minister resulted in Westray being recognised as a Fair Trade island in 2007.

Westray Fairtrade display

The award assessors noted the great connections that the church has with their local community and their commitment to Eco-Congregation Scotland which now spans over 20 years. They were impressed with the legacy fund that the congregation have made available to other Orkney Parish Churches. This fund has allowed other churches to proceed with their own eco work. The assessors said that Westray Parish Church is a case study of how to do it. Amazing and inspirational!

Westray Parish Eco-Congregation co-ordinator Alasdair McVicar said: “This should be a source of great pride for the congregation and it’s very fine to have good news during these strange times but we know it’s an ongoing commitment and we welcome that”.

Parish Minister, Iain MacDonald added: “It’s lovely to have something to celebrate collectively but these awards should never be seen as something to stick on the wall so we can sit back and admire them but as an incentive to us all to maintain the high standards and to build on them”.

There was some old joke about ‘labour’saving devices’… that you always ended up doing more work if someone thought you had time on your hands.

I don’t think it’s quite like that, to have moved from a physically travelling preacher to a digital one: the hours and energy demanded are actually quite similar, even if the front-end minutes (on-screen) may seem less. Even more than when I’m making what may be my only possible visit to your community in five years, every minute is an opportunity, every second of precious attention-span needs to be justified. This Sunday’s “sermon on wheels” is eight minutes, but started with an already whittled-down script and more than half an hour of footage. The ratio for the reflection with which the AGM will begin is somewhat more extreme.

Setting perfectionism in perspective: a good “view” is worthwhile, even if we don’t hold the viewer to the end because the phone rings, or the cat throws up.

Mind you, cats are BIG participants in online meetings!

Then , having reached that stage, there is a “Twitter edition”, brutally cut down to 2 mins 20 seconds.

Online meetings are also a swings and roundabouts thing: they are deceptively draining because they demand more focussed attention, but you can attend, because you do so from home.

And the AGM and Gathering will be a pioneer large ecumenical meeting for the churches of Scotland . As my colleagues said at a recent meeting “no pressure” – but this will be in an atmosphere of peace and encouragement, rather than haughty entitlement. Because this is what I have generally been delighted to discover with the movement. Most of us know that all of us are doing our best. Compassion, commitment, and a yearning for justice are powerful environmental values.

Some things are actually better: the staff group have spent much more time ‘together’, encouraging and talking about projects. The networks are coming into their own as seldom before, thanks to the energetic initiative of Judith, our programme co-ordinator. No need to mention the carbon footprint implications of being at home. And its’ great to breathe fresher air, and hear the birds sing, who are usually drowned out by traffic where I live.

And I’ve ‘got to church’ at my local congregation ,much more often than expected, and with my family. Which impresses upon me both the need to support the online and other efforts of local churches, and for the chaplaincy to continue to offer something special, distinctive, and in addition to the ‘regular’ things in which people are now gaining a degree of confidence.

May we help to add to that, and the assertive visibility of our movement, through lockdown and beyond, to the Grace of God!

Holy Saturday in Lockdown. For the first time in most of our lives, we have pause for thought on this Day of Uncertainty.

The disciples, in hiding, because they were afraid.
And not without cause, because the danger was very real.
The authorities had lost their patience.

And never mind about tomorrow, as Jesus had said. Every horizon was blocked by the pain and tensions of today. For us, it’s really difficult to look beyond the virus, for instance to the news of continuing freak weather in the Pacific region.

The easy way to see the events of the Passion is to portray everything destructive as corruption by the powerful snd influential. People have looked for the technicalities that today might get those accused of abusive crimes off the hook, as if the systems of social control and criminal justice etc in the Empire were themselves sound and reliable. Like the ‘good thief’ who imagines that crucifixion is a proper legal response to his own crimes. We note that Jesus, himself on the cross, doesn’t waste time putting him right, but offers the promise of a paradise which sets all that in perspective.

More demanding is to realise that those who acted against Jesus, by and large, seemed to be people under pressure, doing their best. Trying to be faithful to the spirit of their principles when the pips squeak.

And both during and subsequent to our current and utterly acute emergency, we can expect to see more of that, aided and abetted by what has begun to be described as ‘virtuous snooping’ – the repellent tendency to leap to the worst conclusion if one’s neighbour even appears to be transgressing the letter of the precautions, which are, nonetheless necessary. A walk which doesn’t quite look like ‘exercise’ is a long way from a crass mass gathering. The sanctions appropriate to one should not be applied to the other. Grace, forgiveness, and compassion, these most environmental of divine gifts, never stop applying.

The Passion story shows people with and without authority pushed to that stage when the letter of principles seem – rightly, and even responsibly – to be set aside. A pretty terrible burden. Which, as I have noted before, was what I saw in the preaching of the post-war generation when I was growing up. The non-logic of supporting nuclear weapons ‘because of Auschwitz’. Or annoyance at remembering the tragedy of everyone caught up in a war, “Because our own homes were bombed!”

Yes, I have heard all of that, as a grassroots pastor, in churches.

And in the answer of the army chaplain to my question, on a chaplaincy course, about whether they prayed for the Iraqis in that war . “Yes, once they were defeated”.

I hope I will continue to be shocked that the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ, which come into their own in times of crisis, might be set aside, (whether by me or by others, ) precisely when they are most needed, because, when things were good, we never quite learned how to learn to drive these ‘emergency vehicles’.

The statement of Caiaphas, that it might be right for one person to die for the good of the people is two-edged. For Christianity, whilst crying out against the means and motivation, in some sense has also agreed with the statement.

Yet again, black and white serves us rather poorly. Christianity is born out of the resurrection, which is the divine repurposing of an evil and unjust act.

There’s another deceptively huge step of interpretation. This is in how we read ‘according to the scriptures’. The letter kills but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6). One dramatised Passion I saw this year did not make that saving difference clear, which is necessary if we are to receive, at the end of Easter Sunday: the story of the walk to Emmaus: the poetic and mystical relationship of the Word made Flesh to Scriptures whose origins are in different times and situations, but which, because they can be seen to relate to our Risen Lord, also shed saving light on the struggles of our own day, and the Life of Emergency that still lies before us.

Holy Saturday is cruel. A day of no visible hope. But Sunday does dawn. Not with solutions, but with transformation……. and a challenge of love far greater than the despair of Good Friday.

"We understand absolutely the need to postpone the climate conference in the face of a dire emergency but strongly support the conference being held in Glasgow as soon as is possible in 2021."

"Churches and other faith groups around the world have responded to the immediate crisis with practical action, compassion and love. We must build on this to ensure that after the pandemic we work to build a country and a world where we care for each other and for creation. The UN climate conference is a critical part of that response."

"Eco-Congregation Scotland will continue to work positively with churches and other faith groups across Scotland and around the world to make the climate conference in Glasgow a success in 2021."

Eco-Congregation Scotland is already linking regularly with local and national partners, to encourage hospitality with a warm welcome for visitors attending CoP26 and a legacy of transformational change to tackle the climate emergency at home and around the world.

Key partners include: Glasgow Churches Together, Church of Scotland and the Presbytery of Glasgow, Archdiocese of Glasgow, Scottish Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway, United Reformed Church Synod of Scotland, Methodist Church, Baptist Union of Scotland, The Salvation Army; Christian Aid Scotland, SCIAF, Tearfund Scotland, Justice and Peace Scotland, The Iona Community; Interfaith Scotland, Interfaith Glasgow, Edinburgh Interfaith Association, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Action of Churches Together in Scotland.

Please get in touch to join our work towards making CoP26 a success in Glasgow.

In the video material I’m preparing from day to day, (which you can find in different versions on my own Facebook page, on EcoChaplain online (find on Facebook) on my YouTube channel , and elsewhere,) it may will seem as if I’m not talking anywhere near as much or explicitly about the virus as some of my colleagues and local churches which have ventured into this, for them, largely uncharted territory. Part of this is that by virtue of the ways we are now investigating of being church, we are hugely acknowledging the context which this most acute emergency has created. And the overall environmental emergency, of which this should be seen as part, continues.

I’m putting the time and energy which I would have devoted to church visits into what I hope are distinctively different, and thoughtful online offerings: at present, Palm Sunday , Maundy Thursday and Good Friday have something available, and I’m considering what I might offer for Easter Sunday Please do incorporate and share these fully, if you find it useful: NB there are no known copyright issues whatsoever as I use mostly completely original material, plus public domain, and occasionally things purchased under licence.

What would be rather wonderful in this medium term would be to be able to work with local churches who have taken the plunge into the online world.

Technically: the ideal is to combine the feel of ‘live’ with the reliability of pre-recorded, and experience shows how very unreliable completely live things tend to be without fully professional communications; nonetheless, the adventure is in collaboration.

A friend pointed out that during this time, I can reach more of the 500 churches that make up our EcoCongregation family than otherwise might be the case. That is a daunting, challenging privilege. We have small personal and technical resources, but telecommunications do make things shareable, and I will do my best to make anything I produce to be worth making and worth viewing, though with the expectation that it will be used and received with the same grace which I hope you might accord the sermon/homily provided by your own local priest or minister as they struggle towards successive Sundays.

And having said all that: support and pray for your own local congregations first and foremost, to sustain our fellowship through this strange strange time, hand in hand with Christ.

#EarthHourScotland

In challenging times for everyone across Scotland during the coronavirus situation, it’s even more important to encourage activities that we can all take part in while we “stay at home”.

This year we’re again supporting the wonderful work of WWF Scotland and encouraging all our volunteers to take part in #EarthHour, the world’s biggest switch off event!

Learn more about Earth Hour and find out how to take part here, with great ideas and tips.

Below is a short meditation written by Rev Elizabeth Houston, retired former minister at Alexandria Parish Church, to use when you switch off lights for the planet. Alexandria recently became our latest Eco-Congregation Gold Award winners, following their union with Jamestown to become Lomond Parish Church.

Psalm 8

O Lord, our Lord, Your greatness is seen in all the world!Your praise reaches up to the heavens; it is sung by children and babies.You are safe and secure from all Your enemies; You stop anyone who opposes You.When I look at the sky which You have made, and the moon and the stars which You set in their places – what is man that You think of him; mere man that You care for him?You made him inferior only to Yourself; You crowned him with glory and honour.You appointed him ruler over everything You made; You placed him over all creation: sheep and cattle and the wild animals too; the birds and the fish and the creatures in the seas.O Lord, our Lord, Your greatness is seen in all the world!

Prayer

Almighty God, all-powerful and everlasting, we come before You in awe and yet with fear; for You have trusted us to care for this world which You have made, this world which You saw was good; You laid upon us, the responsibility for all the creatures of the earth, including our brothers and sisters across the globe – and, to our shame, we have allowed self-interest and greed to rule our hearts and threaten all creation.Father God, forgive us.Lord God, as we all feel the effects of this ‘coronavirus’, remind us of our responsibility to each other, to all the creatures in this world and, most of all, to You. Lift us from the darkness and remind us that The Light of the World will shine on through any darkness that humanity can devise and lead us, in Your mercy through this time of challenge for the whole earth and back into the safety and security of Your Light.Father God, uphold us.Remind us, Lord God, that our Lord Christ promised His disciples that He would be with His people, ‘until the end of the age’ and fill us with the spirit of peace and humility, inspire our prayers for one another and for all creation and as we walk again into the Light, Your Light, make us wiser and more responsible for the whole world’s sake and in Jesus’ Name.Lord, hear us, help us and heal us, for Your love’s sake.AMEN

Climate action

READ JOB chapter 38 and consider the theme for this year’s Earth Hour:eliminating the use of single-use plastics; preserving biodiversity; the need for immediate climate action.THINK on how you can help to make things better and live up to God’s challenge of caring for creation.PRAY for the people you love and for this earth.PLANT seeds to grow salads and flowers to colour your life.LISTEN to the birdsong as nature gets on with doing what God made it to do.PLACE a candle in your window (don’t leave it unattended) and help scatter the darkness.

Book of Job chapter 8

Bildad8 Then Bildad the Shuhite replied: 2 “How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind.3 Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right?4 When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.5 But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty,6 if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state.7 Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be. 8 “Ask the former generation and find out what their ancestors learned,9 for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow.10 Will they not instruct you and tell you? Will they not bring forth words from their understanding?11 Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh? Can reeds thrive without water?12 While still growing and uncut, they wither more quickly than grass.13 Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless.14 What they trust in is fragile; what they rely on is a spider’s web.15 They lean on the web, but it gives way; they cling to it, but it does not hold.16 They are like a well-watered plant in the sunshine, spreading its shoots over the garden;17 it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks and looks for a place among the stones.18 But when it is torn from its spot, that place disowns it and says, ‘I never saw you.’19 Surely its life withers away, and from the soil other plants grow. 20 “Surely God does not reject one who is blameless or strengthen the hands of evildoers.21 He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.22 Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tents of the wicked will be no more.” New International Version (NIV)

Pray

In the beginning – GOD; in the darkness – GOD; in Gethsemane – GOD; through the living – GOD; in our weakness – GOD; through our hopelessness – GOD; at the endings – GOD.‘Till the dawn breaks’ – GOD.Glory be to the Father, to the Son and the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, worlds without end.AMEN